Juggling and me

I suppose most anybody who has spent considerable time around me knows that I can juggle, well at least a little. I have a solid 3 ball cascade, and I can do a few 3 ball tricks. I have been working on 4 balls for going on 2 years now. Not consistently mind you..but none the less 2 years. Why would any one put that much effort into something so pointless as juggling you ask? Well I like it.. it is fun. It is distracting, you can do it in your cubicle for a few minutes and it really loosens up stiff typing wrists. But mostly I do it because I can. I spent a LOT of hours learning to juggle even just a little bit. 2 months 3 hours a day or so I spent getting a 3 ball cascade. Now if you juggle at all you think I am insane. NO..just clumsy. Terribly so. Uncoordinated to the point of spilling food on my shirt at every meal. I came home from college for Thanksgiving as a freshman and the thing I was most eager to show of... my sad pathetic juggling skills. I have gotten a lot better since then. But it takes work for me.

I can teach ANYONE to juggle if they want to learn, at least a 3 ball cascade. I had nearly every beginning juggler issue at some point. The sideways shuffle, the constantly walking forward cause I couldn't throw straight up, the inability to start with my left hand, getting stuck at three throws and catches. I found solutions for all of them. My brother learned to juggle from me in about 2 hours. Yep me 2 months, him 2 hours and by 3 hours he was a LOT smoother than me. I suspect I am better now..but I also suspect he hasn't juggled anything in years... and I juggle almost everything I can get my paws on. Dog toys, frozen dinners, weighted tennis balls, normal tennis balls, juggling bags. I would like to learn to juggle clubs. I have a set... I hit myself in the nose a lot right now... so it is sort of negative reinforcement about even trying. I promised my brother I would juggle fire for his son's 5th birthday, Zack is coming up on his first birthday. I had better get clubs down pretty quick here if I want to be safe with fire in 4 years. Or I need to borrow a friend of mine's fireballs.

I get almost as much fun out of teaching people to juggle as I do out of juggling, maybe more so because it is such an inherently giggly activity. People say oh no.. I could never do that. I am far too uncoordinated. Trust me if you can tie your shoes and eat without spilling (heck just tying your shoes since I can't do the latter) you can learn to juggle. I have taught about half of my co-workers to juggle. Just cause they come by and watch me in my cube and look like they want to learn. Or I notice they are stressed and need a break. Nothing sooths the frustrated co-worker like giggling as they learn to juggle, or fail to learn as the case may be. Nobody who has wanted to has failed to learn, and a few people who didn't want to have learned as well. Somebody around here started calling me the Apostle of Juggling. That might be going a bit too far. But hey it is a cool title.

Once I juggled with a klingon. It was late Friday night at Demicon two or three years ago, I was doing security by the elevators (making sure nobody took food from the second floor onto the first, and nobody who wasn't with the convention got off on the second floor) not exactly the most exciting job. I had 3 lacrosse balls with me (they rule for juggling they are heavy and sticky and bounce) and was working on a new trick I don't remember which one. And this guy in all his klingon gear comes up and steals the balls right out of my pattern and tries to teach me to steal them back. It was fun, hilarious, and got a lot of interesting comments. A couple people came by and tried to teach me new tricks too. I talked to all sorts of people I had never met before, it made the tedious job of watching the elevators a great deal more fun.

So if you want to learn to juggle but you feel you are too hopeless let me know. I am sure we can get through it. I bet you can juggle 3 balls before I get the same pattern going with 3 clubs, and I have already been working on that for a while.